Bug 2492704 (CVE-2026-53163)

Summary: CVE-2026-53163 kernel: locking/rtmutex: Skip remove_waiter() when waiter is not enqueued
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's `rtmutex` locking mechanism. A local attacker could trigger a null-pointer dereference by using the `FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI` operation. This vulnerability occurs because the `remove_waiter()` function is called when the waiter is not properly enqueued, leading to a system crash and a denial of service (DoS). This issue was detected by KASAN (Kernel Address Sanitizer).
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-06-25 10:01:22 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

locking/rtmutex: Skip remove_waiter() when waiter is not enqueued

syzbot triggered the following splat in remove_waiter() via
FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI:

  KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000a88-0x0000000000000a8f]
   class_raw_spinlock_constructor
   remove_waiter+0x159/0x1200 kernel/locking/rtmutex.c:1561
   rt_mutex_start_proxy_lock+0x103/0x120
   futex_requeue+0x10e4/0x20d0
   __x64_sys_futex+0x34f/0x4d0

task_blocks_on_rt_mutex() does not arm the waiter upon deadlock detection,
leaving waiter->task nil, where 3bfdc63936dd ("rtmutex: Use waiter::task instead
of current in remove_waiter()") made this fatal.

Furthermore, rt_mutex_start_proxy_lock() should not be calling into remove_waiter()
upon a successfully grabbing the rtmutex. 1a1fb985f2e2 ("futex: Handle early deadlock
return correctly"), moved the remove_waiter() out of __rt_mutex_start_proxy_lock()
(where 'ret' was only ever 0 or < 0) into the wrapper. Tighten this check to
account for try_to_take_rt_mutex().

Comment 1 Mauro Matteo Cascella 2026-06-26 11:02:59 UTC
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2026062550-CVE-2026-53163-0eb8@gregkh/T